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Fresh Fruit
- Thread starter Marnie606
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Leadinglights
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No, it was the cereal that was doing the damage most breakfast cereals are high carb, your portion could well have been 30g carb or more depending on how much you had, check the TOTAL carb on your packet and weight your portion.
Many will have full fat Greek yoghurt with the berries and maybe a very small amount of a low sugar cereal like granola or All bran.
I have same problem . I eat porridge and prunes with some berries at breakfast and BG shoots up to > 14. I need the porridge to help with diverticulitis ( and I love it ) I’ve tried taking more insulin, but it still shoots Up then shoots down too low in 2 hrs and I have to eat something else. When diagnosed a few months ago, was told I can eat anything as long as I match it with insulin, but in reality if I eat more than 30 -50 carbs in a meal, BG goes too high - if I keep it below 50carbs it’s ok. Very frustrating as I don’t need to lose weight and enjoy my food - or used to !
Leadinglights
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No real clue but could it be the timing of when you take the insulin, are you matching your insulin to the carbs?
Hopefully those insulin experts will be able to advise.
Don't forget the problem will be different for Type 2 as their dietary needs will not be the same.
Thank you- yes I’ve discussed this with my nurse, but can’t seem to resolve it . Tried to time insulin as instructed and tried splitting the dose etc - even tried taking it after breakfast and it shot up to 18. Think I’ll either have to accept the spike ( it always comes back down in 2 hrs) or loose my porridge? I’m told by my nurse that the odd spike isn’t a problem - only if it remains high for long periods. Think they look at the average to measure control? Same thing happens any time I have a high carb meal
Leadinglights
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If you would like to say what insulins you are taking as that may make a difference as to how effective they are at managing to minimise those spikes, people do seem to need to pre bolus to cope with high carb meals and at different tomes of the day.
Your signature say 'Other Type' which may be why there is not a straight forward answer.
Inka
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- Type 1
What insulins do you take? If you’re on a bolus/fast insulin for meals, you need to inject it an appropriate time in advance. For many people, breakfast needs a bigger time in advance than other meals eg for me with Humalog I need to inject 30 mins before breakfast.
Inka
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Thank you for your help. I have just got some Greek yoghurt to try tomorrow. I thought Special K would be ok to have, I have a lot to learn. I am Type 2 and am on Sukkarto 1000 tablets, two a day.
Leadinglights
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Special K is one of the higher carb cereals at 73g per 100g, that compares to some of the low sugar granola which are about 45g carb per 100g. I recently discovered Keto Hana granola which is something like 9g carb per 100g but is mega expensive so I have been mixing it 50/50 with Lizi's low sugar granola and have 20g of that on my full fat Greek yoghurt with berries.
I highly recommend the book (or app) Carbs and Cals as it is a good pictorial carb guide of a whole range of foods. I was and is my bible in making better food choices.
Thanks. I’ll cut out the cereal altogether I think, it’s the fruit I love. Next time I shop I’ll check out the granola choices.
I’ll check out the ap you mentioned.
Thanks again.
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Welcome to the forum @Marnie606
Sounds like you are making great progress, and great to hear that you are checking your responses to foods with a BG meter. This is a great example of the power of that technique! You had thought (or been told) that cereals would be OK, but the before and after checks showed that your BG rose more than 2-3mmol/L, which suggests your body is breaking down the carbs in Special K and absorbing them as blood glucose more rapidly than your body can easily handle.
So now you have a few options… you can try a reduced portion size; you can alter the components of the meal to blend with other things eg the suggestion of mixing with yoghurt and berries (sometimes foods behave quote differently in different combinations); or you can try a different type of cereal (diabetes can be fickle, so it won’t always make logical sense or live up to expectations!).
Crucially you are discovering, by experimentation, a way of eating that works for you, suits your tastebuds, and gives you the results you are looking for 🙂
Sounds like you are making great progress, and great to hear that you are checking your responses to foods with a BG meter. This is a great example of the power of that technique! You had thought (or been told) that cereals would be OK, but the before and after checks showed that your BG rose more than 2-3mmol/L, which suggests your body is breaking down the carbs in Special K and absorbing them as blood glucose more rapidly than your body can easily handle.
So now you have a few options… you can try a reduced portion size; you can alter the components of the meal to blend with other things eg the suggestion of mixing with yoghurt and berries (sometimes foods behave quote differently in different combinations); or you can try a different type of cereal (diabetes can be fickle, so it won’t always make logical sense or live up to expectations!).
Crucially you are discovering, by experimentation, a way of eating that works for you, suits your tastebuds, and gives you the results you are looking for 🙂
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Sorry to hear you’ve been having a bit of a tricky time with porridge @Nanette - yes the commonly offered ‘eat what you like and just dose for it’ phrase is beguilingly simple (and strictly speaking true) but it does slightly overlook the complexity of getting the insulin action to match with the absorption characteristics of the food in question (alongside the effects of the 40+ other things that may or may not be affecting things at the time!). Still, we love a challenge eh!
Here are my basic understandings of the way I use the dose adjustment options you have been experimenting with…
Prebolus
Take the insulin dose, then wait a period of time to allow it to become fully or partially active before eating. I use this when the insulin acts too late for the food and I get high BGs after eating that then eventually come down into range several hours later. Modern rapid insulins act over approx 4-5 hours, so be cautious about your reading at the 2hr mark - you most likely have half the dose active and quite a bit of food still being digested.
Split Dose
Take a proportion up front, and either a second dose some hours later, or use an insulin pump to deliver the second part of the dose over an extended period of time. This is helpful when ‘all up front‘ acts too fast, and/or when the action of the insulin needs to be spread over a longer period (eg when carbs absorb very slowly). I use this when taking the full dose up front results in a hypo soon after eating, followed by a big BG rise several hours later.
Dose after
This is a more extreme version of split dose, perhaps useful when BG is at the bottom end of my range before the meal, or if for some reason I am not sure if I will be able to eat everything.
For your porridge conundrum it looks like pre-bolusing is the way to go. The fact that you get a big BG spike, followed by a hypo later suggests to me that the insulin dose is, if anything, too much for the porridge - but that it is arriving far too late.
Matters may be complicated further because you might be getting a bit of a liver dump (where the body fires up the burners for the day by releasing glucose) at or around the time you get out of bed.
How long have you been leaving between dosing and eating? It could well be that the standard 10-15 minute delay to allow the insulin to start working isn’t enough, and you might want to experiment with leaving it an extra 5 minutes every few days until you start to see the post-porridge spike come down.
There have been times when I’ve needed to leave almost a full hour for the insulin to get going at breakfast time in the past, though it has currently settled back to about 30 minutes for me.
Good luck, and let us know how you get on 🙂
Wow, thank you for your very helpful response. I will try less of a different cereal and again with fruit/berries. I will take my BG measurement before and after.
Thank you so much for your valued advice.
Mrs Mimoo
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no stop the cereal! put the berries on a full fat, plain, greek yoghurt instead. Cereal is the thing that is most likely to have spiked you.
Mrs Mimoo
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could you try some seeds instead of the porrige, e.g. greek yogurt with blueberries and some flax or chia seeds on top instead?
Mrs Mimoo
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- Type 2
instead of granola, try a sprinkle of chopped nuts and fruit on the yoghurt.
Ok I will do that. This is great advice. Thank you very much.
Well I'm going to disagree with mrs mimoo here and say a bowl of no added sugar musli/ granola with milk if fine. FOR SOME PEOPLE, it is for me (type2) but testing is the only way to be sure FOR YOU.
That's the thing with diabetes (I've found) each person reacts differently to the same foods, where here everyone say greek yoghurt but for me it spikes me big time. The only way to know what does what is testing and keep a record of what works for you.
That's the thing with diabetes (I've found) each person reacts differently to the same foods, where here everyone say greek yoghurt but for me it spikes me big time. The only way to know what does what is testing and keep a record of what works for you.
Thanks for your info. I’m trying all ways to see what works for me. I enjoyed the Greek yoghurt but will try your suggestion too.
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